Tag: travel

I wish airport theory were around 10-15 years ago

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NYP: dumbasses of today theorize the redundancy of airport policies, makes “challenge” of trying to traverse an airport prior to a flight in as short as time as possible

Honestly, I’ve long since thrown in the towel at trying to rationalize the dumb shit that the people of today do.  Go ahead and call it me getting old, but I’m seldom ever surprised at the things that become trends, so much as I’m always just like “ehh, that’s a thing now?  Fucking ok”

So not only am I not surprised that the trend labeled airport theory is a thing now, I’m more surprised that it’s taken this long for it to have been given a name, because people have been testing airport theory for as long as I’ve been flying, especially in the post-9/11 days where the TSA came to existence and the obnoxious policies that are mostly in place today came to fruition.

People have been testing the boundaries and limits of what they can get away with, with airport policies since 2001, but the only difference really is the existence of TikTok, and the gradually sheep-herder mentalities of the people today who see something and immediately want to mimic it en masse to where it rapidly picks up steam and becomes yet another dumbass trend that’s quick to be labeled a Gen-Z thing, which I don’t always agree with, because I’ve seen people of all ages testing airport theory over the last two decades-plus.

My only real thought is that I really wish airport theory were a thing back 10-15 years ago, when I had a Delta flight pass and could basically hop on any flight to anywhere in the continental United States, as a standby, which I obviously utilized to tremendous effect, contributing towards me crushing a large portion of my 30 MLB baseball park journey.

I always played it smart, monitored conditions and kept abreast of as many variables as I could to optimize my chances at getting on all the flights I wanted to, but I wasn’t without my share of failures too.  I’ve been stuck in places like Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland and failed to get out of Reagan-National countless times, and more times than I can count, I was unable to get out of Atlanta for the start of a trip, regardless of how much things seemed possible beforehand.

If travel theory were a thing 10-15 years ago, my success rate at getting on planes would have likely skyrocketed, because when airlines actually adhere to policy, the dumbasses who are testing airport theory and trying to get from airport entrance to the jetbridge giving themselves 15 minutes would have forfeited their seats eons ago in comparison, and for every idiot that insisted on testing airport theory there were, would be one more standby passenger cleared to board the aircraft.

In fact, some of my worst stories involving standby travel probably involve dorks who were testing airport theory, inadvertently, before it was even coined as being airport theory.  Like me getting cleared to board an aircraft but then being bumped at the eleventh hour and 59th minute because some fuckwit managed to bitch and complain and eke their way to the gate, and reclaim their forfeited seat because the squeaky wheel always gets the grease.

But yeah, if airport theory were a thing 10-15 years ago when I was jetsetting and traveling nearly twice a month, I would’ve not only had a way easier time in traveling, I probably would have traveled more and explored the country if I knew it would be so easy to travel.

The funny thing is, and I don’t care enough about it to look it up, but I’m really curious to see how much of all these airport theory videos are occurring in Atlanta.  If there’s not a lot of evidence of airport theory being tested at ATL, then I can comfortably say that if there was, the trend would undoubtedly come to a screeching halt.  Fewer airports are staffed with as many people who relish and take sadistic, arrogant satisfaction at ruining the days of travelers than Atlanta Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport and Nail Emporium. 

The irony is that they don’t do it by being incompetent, they do so by being as procedurally bullet proof as possible, adhering to every single bulleted rule there could be in airport, airline, TSA policy, with the express purpose of fucking every single person who tries to skirt protocol, test airport theory and try and get one up on system.

I’d love to see one of these TikTok dorks make a video where they’re like “uhh hey what’s up guys, I’m at ATL, I’ve got 15 minutes to board my Delta flight at T7, and I just got to security” and then it cuts to them having moved up maybe 7-8 people and then they’re like “welp, looks like I missed my flight” or they get to their gate, the doors are closed, and the gate agent is smugly finishing their outbound report, as they calmly tell the camera “sir/ma’am, procedure dictates that you be present at the gate at X time OR we will forfeit your seat” and then airport theory is basically defeated.

Either way, I wish this shit existed 10-15 years ago.  I would’ve thrived as a traveler, getting on more flights at a way higher clip, and seen more of the country before it completely went to shit.

Welp, absolutely no more reason to favor Southwest over anyone else

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Southwest Airlines ditching bags fly free, eliminating their last real differentiator to competitors

And with the elimination of open seating as of the start of the 2025 season, Southwest Airlines has fully committed to blending into the landscape entirely, leaving them with no more real differentiators from their competition.  Honestly, bags fly free, as small as it seemed in comparison to what they once were as one of the true alternatives in the airline playing field, was still something to consider for airline passengers planning a trip.

Sure, they kind of baked it into their general fares once you did some price shopping against other airlines plus bag fees, but if you played your cards right, Southwest was still a place where you could snag a bargain, if you had the flexibility or willingness to nudge your schedule around.

But with the elimination of bags fly free, it’s apparent that Southwest no longer gives any shits about industry disruption and shaping their brand around being a friendlier alternative to the Deltas, Uniteds and Americans out there that are otherwise crowding the playing field, and prefers to be among the big dogs, raking in profits through a smorgasbord of industry collusion, fare hikes, fees, and general practice of cornering and exasperating consumers into feeling like they have no choice but to shell out in order to accomplish their travel objectives.

It’s funny, because regulation ended in the late 70s, partially so that airline companies could exercise some freedom to be creative, shake up the industry and ultimately strive towards some innovation and likely profit.  But it was done because regulation was choking the industry out with standardized practices, policies, fares and routes, and everyone was basically the same despite operating under different banners.

In the grand spectrum of the airline industry today, regulation might have officially been deregulated in 1978 but make no mistake, regulation really isn’t gone as far as practice goes.  Between all the big dog airlines out there that have a stranglehold on most of the premier routes throughout the country and internationally, they’re all basically the same despite having different names.

They’re all ass-expensive nowadays, have as many taxes and fees as a Ticketmaster transaction, bags don’t fly free and cost an arm, changes at their behest fuck your schedule up, and changes at your behest costs a leg.  They all have shitty customer service, and when the day is over, coordinating airline travel isn’t really that different than coordinating a trip to the movies.  Sometimes we’ll pay the extra and settle on having to deal with a shitty 3-D version of the film solely because the schedule is optimal, and it’s not that different with flying the skies, we’ll go with the airline that fucks us the least and isn’t that terrible for our desired schedules.

In the end, the airline industry really has turned into absolutely nothing more than a game of hubs.  Where smaller airlines squabble and compete over every single customer, the bigger dogs are all trying to gain footholds in regions, because the more regions they can hold higher market share in, the more they’re simply going to win the wars of attrition solely based on routes.

Everyone knows that Atlanta is Delta country, Chicago is where United and American have giant presences, and all of them have smaller hubs across the country.  Southwest seems content to keep their footings in places like Dallas, Baltimore and Phoenix, and instead of trying to keep customers happy or working to be the refreshing alternative to the rest of the market, they’ll probably focus on gaining footing in other markets instead.

Either way, at this point, one change Southwest really should consider is allowing their flights to be searchable on aggregate comparison sites and scrapers like Kayak, Expedia and Travelocity.  I have to imagine it was probably fucking them in the past, voluntarily not being searchable on third-party sites, trying to really push consumers to search directly and save some money, but since they’re no longer trying to compete anymore, they may as well try to bail on this methodology and allow themselves to be searchable on aggregate sites; just like all their competitors do.

The bottom line is that I don’t travel as much as I once did, but I always did like Southwest in that they flew directly from Atlanta to two places I like to be able to get to.  I’m not going to outright blacklist them because that would only hurt myself, but I don’t really have any reason to give them any preferable consideration over any competitors.

And as I’ve said hundreds of times in my life, I miss AirTran, and I still hold a little salt at Southwest for Borg’ing them just to get access to their routes, but then jacking up the fares on said routes to where it’s difficult to consider them more often.

Self-improvement is learning a new language

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions anymore, because my world is pretty small and there’s not a lot of things that I could really resolve to do, like lots of the popular resolutions like “save money” and “lose weight” that would end with me feeling disappointed and dejected when the results would inevitably be minimal, if at anything at all.

But somewhere in the month of December, I decided that I should give Duolingo a try and try to pick up a foreign language, and that starting on the New Year seemed like a good of time as there would be to begin doing so.  That being said, I will be one of many people in the world doing a little bit of lessons on a daily basis, trying to bring myself to some degree of competency in Spanish.

I’ve always felt that the world is way too small to not know more than a single language, and I’ve always felt fortunate that I know a passable amount of Korean on top of English.  I always find it real cringey when Americans are rendered utterly useless when approached by someone who speaks a different language, or if they’re in a different country and completely inept at speaking something else and arrogantly assume everyone else should be speaking English.

I still remember returning from a trip to Europe and walking through customs at New York-JFK, and seeing the faces of foreign tourists go from wide-eyed excitement to fear and disappointment when trying to communicate with airport personnel, almost none of which could speak another language.  Meanwhile, on the way out of the country, arriving in places like Paris or Munich, everyone in those places speaks English, are helpful and accommodating, and a complete 180 of the treatment people get when arriving in America.

I actually struggled on deciding between Spanish and French as a new language to learn, because I actually would have preferred to learn French, seeing as how mythical wife is fluent in it, and as someone who has aspirations to see more of the world in my life, French being the language spoken in the largest number of countries, feels like it would have the most usefulness.

But I’m not going to be traveling internationally any time soon, despite the Global Entry that I went out of my way to acquire, so I decided to go with Spanish, since I already had a little bit of experience with it, having taken two years of it in middle and high school, and the sheer fact that when push comes to shove, knowing Español would have a tremendously higher chance of being useful in America than French would.

And the thing is, I’ve seen Duolingo work out for people that I know that use it.  I’ve watched friends of mine become fairly proficient in other languages, and it’s not like they’re going full-tryhard mode and sinking a tremendous amount of time into foreign language lessons.  They’re just consistent, and if there’s absolutely one thing that I know that I’m 1%-level elite at, is being consistent and sticking with things, once I get started with them.

One of my bros has like a 2,000+ day streak going with his own journey.  I told him that I was coming for him, to which he laughed off, but I kindly reminded him that I’ve been brogging for the last 15 years, and even ten more before that, before I migrated all my shit to WordPress.  If there’s something that I’m among the best at, it’s sticking with things, and I’m hoping that if I can stick to Duolingo remotely close to how I stick to things like my brog, Wordle, Fire Emblem Heroes and Pokémon GO, then I’ll become a pretty decent Spanish speaker before long. 

I’m enjoying it so far, and I’m hoping that one day, being able to bust out some Español can come in handy or helpful to myself or others.

Thanksgiving musings and perspectives

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For the Thanksgiving holiday this year, my house trekked north back up to Virginia to spend some time with my side of the family.  Such was always something I was pretty ambivalent about in the past, but ever since I had kids, I do feel that there is some importance in having them have connection with my side of the family, not to mention try to build relationships with the litany of cousins they have, as I did growing up.

Overall, it was a very good trip, and I’m happy to have spent a good bit of time with my sister, cousins and parents, but most of all, I was happiest that my kids got to spend time with their cousins and my family members and be able to build relationships and connections with family that they don’t get to see too often.  My happiest memories looking back on the trip were seeing my kids playing exuberantly with their cousins, and I’m thankful for my niece, nephew and the kids of my cousins all being so good to my children, and I’m optimistic that they can have a similar upbringing to my own, where the cousins all were pretty tightly knit growing up.

However, an introduction like this doesn’t happen if there weren’t some things that weren’t positive, and unfortunately for this holiday there were some bad things that definitely put a damper on things.

Firstly, to cut to the chase, I hit a deer while driving, and my car suffered a nasty crack on the bumper as well as the headlight assembly.  I was driving along a road that I’d driven thousands of times in my life while living there, and I’d never seen deer on this stretch of road before.  I was probably going no faster than 25-28 mph while accelerating when the deer popped out of a grassy median and it was so bang-bang fast that I was a good 200 feet past and continuing before it really registered what had happened.

The thing is, while on the drive up, I distinctly remembered having a thought about just how many dead deer I had seen on the shoulders all over I-85 in southern Virginia, and how I really should keep my guard up while driving at night on this trip.  But as I said, this was a stretch of road that was long developed, not very close to any real wooded areas where deer might like to reside in, and where I’d never seen deer before in my life.  So my guard was definitely not up at this moment in time, and it just figures that would be when my premonition came to fruition, and I plastered the poor animal.

I replayed the moment in my head countless times at this point and the thing is, I’m not mad at the deer or the species as a whole, like I might’ve been in the past for putting me in this situation.  Northern Virginia is an endlessly developing area, and it’s a no brainer that the constant sprawl and development in Fairfax county and surrounding areas are displacing the wildlife all over, and next thing I know I’m hitting deer in a place where I’d never seen deer before in my life.

What I am thankful for is the fact that nobody in my car was hurt, and to my knowledge nobody behind me appeared to be hurt, as I was the first car in the line of cars turning onto the road, and it looked like there were plenty of braking going on behind me.  My kids were little zombies watching the iPad, so they didn’t notice anything but the sound of impact and the bump of me running it over, and didn’t seem to care because they were too busy watching Little Einsteins.  This wasn’t a conversation that I would’ve wanted to have had, so I take it as a win, on all accounts.

Additionally, despite looking pretty nasty when I originally did stop, when I got to my cousin’s place, we were able to pop the initial dent back out, which was a big victory, as it was pushing the wheel liner into contact with the tire, and there was initial talk about cutting it off in order to remain drivable.  A little duct tape and a few zip ties, and my car was safe enough to have made the return trip to Georgia, to where its repair is now on the table in coming weeks.

Here’s the thing though-as much as something like this probably would have tanked the entire trip for me in the past, I realized that there were so many other victories to be had given the circumstances, that the main L taken that will cost actual money and likely aggravation of playing car Tetris or a rental didn’t seem so bad.  Plus, when I got back to my cousin’s place, dinner was ready, two beers, a fire pit, reminiscing with my cousins while hearing the sound of my kids having a blast with their cousins really rescued the night and I like to think that this was all one of those, you know you’re maturing, kind of scenarios.

Also, waking up to the worst news possible of hearing of a passing of a loved one to my brother’s family really does knock everything else into a genuinely thankful perspective, on Thanksgiving.  Pretty much nothing can top that as far as bad news is concerned, but again, trying to find the silver lining in bad situations, given the circumstances of the departed’s final days, there’s probably a modicum of relief in knowing that they’re no longer in any pain or having to fight the good fight any longer.

As sad and heartbroken I felt for my brother’s family, it really did help put everything else into perspective about the things that myself and everyone else could genuinely be thankful for.  My kids were safe and unaware of the deer situation, most everyone in my family was in good health.  I got to spend some time with my parents with my kids, and I’m glad that my kids have interactions and memories with them, because I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen a grandfather in my life.

Even the whole car debacle afforded me a bonus good memory, because when I took the car on a shakedown ride to make sure it was safe at highway speeds and cornering, I took the opportunity while I was alone to pop by a close friend’s house to say hi and wish them a happy Thanksgiving.

The drive back was long, and doing Richmond to Atlanta was the longest stretch that my kids had ever had to endure in the car, but equipped with a lot of snacks and an iPad full of downloaded shows, they did great.  My only gripe is the feeling of being a glorified Uber driver, since I have to focus on driving, and none of my adult passengers can get their heads off of their phones to actually converse or be remotely the types of passengers to help a ride not feel so long.

But as a whole, I still look back at Thanksgiving positively.  My kids had a great time with my family, and I was happy to catch up with everyone who came to dinner, and I can only hope that future family gatherings in the future will be as good as this one was, but hopefully with no more deer incidents.

Thoughts about the supposed Goonies 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t these days, and what’s declared to be real actually remaining real after a little bit of time, but for better or worse, at the time I’m writing this, it sounds like a 40-years later The Goonies sequel is really going to be happening.

My knee-jerk reaction is basically oh god please no whyyyyyy because I really wish Hollywood could leave things that are dead and resting, dead and resting, but seeing as how it seems like allowing The Goonies to have that privilege is coming off the table, might as well allow the ball to continue to roll and brog about it, since it’s evident that this has been on my mind over the last few days while I’ve been waiting for the smoke to clear on whether it’s legit or not, as well as trying to carve time out to write.

Needless to say, I’m not that thrilled with one of my legitimate all-time favorite stories of my childhood being drug out of the 80s just to capitalize on the low-hanging fruit of nostalgia, but what can I say, money is what makes the world go round.  And as Cobra Kai has proven, not every instance of a nostalgia-driven encore is entirely turrible, and although the likelihood isn’t high, I can only hope for the best as far as it concerns The Goonies.

Frankly, if this was ever going to happen, I feel like they’re 10-15 years too late, especially considering the fact that the intention seemed to always have been to bring back as much of the original cast as possible.  All of the OG cast at this point are all too fucking old to be parents to the next generation of Goonies, and they’re at this weird transitional age where they’re too old to be parents to kids but rather teens that are probably older than the original crew, but also a little too young to convincingly be grandparents to the next generation.

But push comes to shove, I’m going to have to assume that the children’s cast of this supposed sequel are probably all going to be the grandchildren of the original Goonies; Josh Brolin is 56 and Sean Astin is 53, and neither are going to convince anyone that they’re any younger than that, so as much as television and film likes to try to convince us that 30 year olds can portray teenagers with attitude, I think it’s probably best to age them up and make them grandparents instead.

Which would probably help to make more plausible the inevitable casting of minorities in the next generation of Goonies, because in the DEI world we live in now, it goes without saying that the next generation is guaranteed to not be a white boys + Data group, and is definitely going to be a little more colorfully diverse by the time this film comes supposedly drops in 2026 or so.

That being said, let’s hypothesize the next generation of The Goonies, apples to apples, because I think it’s obvious that it’s got to be the descendants of the original crew that will comprise the kids’ cast.

  • Mikey will be represented by his granddaughter to be the leader of The New Goonies™; naïve and adventurous, and willing to believe in the remnants of One Eyed Willy’s treasure in the caves.
  • Brand will have married a black woman after Andi dumps him after high school, and their biracial daughter will then have married a black man, and therefore can cast a black male actor to be the descendant of Brand. He will naturally be the muscle and the big brother of the crew.
  • Chunk’s (despite the fact that Jeff Cohen lost all his chunk and is rather fit these days) grandson will be the most likely original Chunk, as in be a chubby Jewish boy who will somehow end up in a Hawaiian shirt and plaid pants, and act as the primary comic relief because it’s funny because he’s fat.
  • Mouth’s grandson will probably be ambiguously biracial, and I foresee someone looking like the next generation’s Mario Lopez will be playing this role. He will undoubtedly be as snarky and blabbermouthed as his grandfather.
  • Data being pretty traditionally Chinese despite the fact that Ke Huy Quan is from Vietnam, will have a granddaughter representing his role, and although she won’t have the trench coat or the backpack full of gadgets and crowd-control inventions, will still be the techie brains of the crew who will probably be good at MacGuyvering shit for the team when they need it.
  • And because the white quotient is starting to get outnumbered, Andi will have a cute granddaughter that probably will look like Sabrina Carpenter taking her place in the next generation, so that Brand can have a potential romantic interest, as well as giving the next generation of young boys something to be confused about through their own respective adolescences.
  • Which brings us to Stef, whom Martha Plimpton has accepted with grace as being the “last” one, will undoubtedly have had an adopted son/grandson, probably white, so that white people still have a slim majority in representation because that’s how Hollywood be, will resume Stef’s legacy of being the tail end of the team, and to provide as much contribution as his grandmother.

As for the actual plot of this film, who really knows what it’s going to be about.  If Chris Columbus and Richard Donner couldn’t figure something out throughout the last 30 years of Donner’s life, I don’t have much faith that anyone else is going to have any better ideas, but it really doesn’t matter. 

If this is going to work, it’s going to have to take place in Astoria, it’s going to have to involve the remains of One Eyed Willy’s treasure, because everyone knows at the end of the OG, the Inferno sails away into the Pacific Northwest, so I’m going to guess that there’s still caches of treasures in the remains of the caves, or perhaps additional ships that The New Goonies can go search for, but as long as the spirit of the film doesn’t stray too far from the original, it stands to believe that this might be able to be as popular with the next generation of kids as the original was to my own childhood.

What kind of irks me though is that I legitimately had plans on saying fuck it, and going to Astoria for my next birthday, by myself, because it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do in my life, and I’m no longer going to expect or even attempt to bring anyone along for the ride, because of people I know, nobody really wants to do this except for me.  Hopefully news of moar Goonies in the future doesn’t re-ignite other OG fans to want to make the same pilgrimage, and ruin my original fandom spurred on by news of a supposed sequel in the works.  Or worse off, by the time I get there, filming has started and I get monstrously cockblocked at seeing all of the original stuff that I had always wanted to see and walk in my own nostalgic life.

Only time will tell, and if any of this shit impacts my future travels, it’s only a question of just how pissed and disappointed it’ll make me.

This girl is living my dream and I’m so jelly

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

BI: Philadelphia fashion photographer capitalizes on constantly oversold route, extends Italian vacation several days and makes over $3K in flight vouchers while getting free hotels and food

Let me tell you how envious I was feeling when reading this story.  This girl managed to accomplish something that I’ve tried to do in the past to no success, and on a scale that I could only dream about.  Having the flexibility and lack of commitments enough to where she could just say fuck it and stay in Italy for as many days as American Airlines constantly kept overselling their Naples to Philadelphia route, and volunteering to take the bump; this is the stuff that my dreams used to be made of.

I’ve actually never been able to accomplish this even once before, even at the piddly domestic level.  Even if there’s been opportunities to volunteer my position for even a nominal, $300-400 flight credit, either I’ve been beaten to the punch or my flexibility wasn’t prohibitive enough for me to go for it, and I’ve always sat in terminals or on flights, fantasizing over the what-if, I could accomplish it, and get some large amounts of house money in which I could then parlay into bigger and better trips, or even some first-class accommodations instead.

One holiday a long time ago, I booked on Thanksgiving day itself, thinking that being a holiday, and before the all-important Thanksgiving Dinner time, I would be a shoe-in for a credit scenario; frankly, I didn’t want to make the trip in the first place, and I figured if there was ever a chance I would get to reach for the stars and take a shot at one of my travel fantasies, this would be the opportunity.

However, it’s apparent that the maniacal traveling is done the day before, or the Sunday before, and when it comes to Thanksgiving Day itself, fuck, I could’ve stood-by for the flight and made it on the flight, it was so desolate, but instead, I was the schmuck who paid for a full fare, thinking it would be oversold, I could forfeit my seat, get $500, and be absolved of having to travel up for a holiday.

All the times mythical wife and I have traveled internationally, we’ve always talked about what we’d do if the opportunity ever presented itself, but usually one or both of us were working too stringent of jobs to risk missing, especially since remote work never really existed for our lines of business until COVID, or we had to be cognizant of animal care, or some other reason, so we never really had a serious shot at cashing in on this ourselves.

And now that we have kids, this dream is basically non-existent anymore, unless the kids were already with other family, they weren’t burnt out yet, and were demanding that we tried for it, which I don’t imagine is going to be happening any time soon seeing as how we travel on airplanes maybe twice a year, if even that.

But yeah, I’m so jelly of this girl for what she was able to accomplish.  Not that I’m particularly a fan of American Airlines, but I would gladly take their money if they were offering it up in $1,200 increments to forfeit my seat, and feed and house me.  If I were in her situation, I would do the exact same thing, and be at the airport praying for another oversold notice, and be jumping up and down raising my hand to be the people to continuously volunteer to give up my seat.  I can only try to not be in denial of how much I’d like to live vicariously through her freedom and independence in these circumstances, and the amount of free travel she’ll be able to eke out of $3,550.

Good riddance, Pearl

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TIL: the Atlanta Braves will be moving their Double-A minor league affiliate from Pearl, Mississippi to Columbus, Georgia.  They will also be ditching the Braves moniker and will hopefully be something chintzy and marketable

Not that I pay attention to every iota of Braves coverage as I once did at a point in my life, but as a fan of minor league baseball, and for lack of a better term, a fan of the Atlanta Braves, news like this piques my interest, even if this were reported way the fuck back in January of this year.

I mean, I knew that the Braves had relinquished control over all of their minor league squads back in 2021 like selling their debts, and I didn’t hate the news at all quite the contrary, because I felt that it opened the door for Braves affiliates to spread their wings and try to be something more in the spirit of minor league baseball, instead of the boring, stuffy and sterile branding of “The Braves.”

Gwinnett (AAA) had already switched over to becoming the Strippers Stripers, and Rome (A+) as of this years ditched being the Braves and became The Emperors, as in Roman emperor, and better yet, adopted emperor penguins to be their team’s mascot.  Not that I’ve been paying any attention, but for whatever reason, the Mississippi Braves had remained as such over the last two-plus seasons, and despite their freedom to do so, they didn’t appear to be in any rush to make any changes to the organization.

Until this season apparently, as it was announced that the club will be moving out of Pearl, Mississippi and moving to Columbus, Georgia, as well as ditching the Braves moniker and will be adopting a new name for the start of the 2025 minor league season.

At first blush, my thought was, oh great here we go again with a brand new fucking ballpark to build, but it turns out that there’s apparently a historic ballpark in Columbus, Golden Park, that will actually be renovated and used to house the future Columbus Braves affiliate, instead of building something from scratch.  Granted, a renovation isn’t cheap either, and I’m sure it will probably be something of a $65M tax burden for the people of Columbus to absorb, but that sure beats the $126M it took to build the Braves’ Spring Training facility from scratch in Sarasota.

Regardless of the financial burden of accommodations, this is actually a change that I don’t immediately just want to shit on upon hearing about it.  Having been to Pearl, Mississippi, solely to watch a M-Braves game, I have to say that getting the fuck out of that shithole in the middle of goddamn nowhere is nothing but good news for the Braves and frankly, all of Minor League Baseball in that nobody again will ever have to step foot in Pearl/Jackson, Mississippi after the 2024 season.

It’s the only place I’ve ever been to where I genuinely felt like I was whisked back in time at the casual ignorant racism that got in just a singular afternoon in town, from the moment I left the airport, to getting to the ballpark, and while simply getting food.  The cabbie who picked me up from the airport thought that I had to have been an actual player since I was headed to the ballpark, and upon arriving at the ballpark, I caught some kids staring at me and thinking I was Hideki Matsui.

It’s clear that Asian people aren’t a common occurrence in this chunk of the country, but god damn.  During the game, I was puckish so I went up to a concession stand where there were unsurprisingly chicken tenders and fries, and when I handed over my debit card to pay, the lady at the register examined my card and put down her bifocals, and then said to me, “oh that’s an easy one.”

Obviously having no fucking clue to what she was talking about, I asked her what, and she responded that it was my name, that it was one of those names that wasn’t too hard to pronounce.  Okay then

So needless to say, it seems like a monumental win for any person or any business or in this case, any team, to get the fuck out of Pearl, Mississippi, and head closer to somewhere that’s closer to their parent organization.  Columbus isn’t a tremendous step up from Pearl as far as not feeling like you’re in the middle of nowhere, but at least it’s a military town where people have had some etiquette and discipline beaten into them, and it’s only like a 2-3 hour drive to the Metro Atlanta area if anyone wants to feel some actual civilization.

I’m excited to eventually find out what the team will lean towards as far as a new team name, branding and identity will be.  I don’t know much about Columbus other than it being a military town, so I can’t take any snarky takes or come up with any sarcastic names to anoint them as, but hopefully the yokels out there will have the wherewithal to steer clear of the low-hanging fruit of Christopher, whom we all with brains have heard wasn’t exactly the best guy in history.

But hey, there’s always the Columbus Barves, wouldn’t that be some shit, to take the popularized typo-meme-unofficial sarcasm name for whenever the team fucks up, and make it official?  A guy can dream.